[A Class Divided]

[ A Class Divided] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html

This is a documentary about, Jane Elliott, a teacher who divides her third graders into blue and brown-eyed groups. She tells the blue-eyes they are “the better people in this room,” gives them privileges and comments on their superiority all day. The brown eyes must wear collars. On the second day, the roles are reversed. Elliott says she lied and that “the truth is that brown-eyed people are better than blue-eyed people.” On this day, the brown eyes score higher on a test compared to the previous day when they were “inferior.” She observes their behaviors throughout these two days.

I picked this video for my media portfolio because it reminded me of what Johnson said about privilege, oppression, and race. I also found it very interesting and thought you all would too.

The photo is of the children that were in her class. If you would like to watch this documentary then you can click on the link above.

This documentary is closely related to Johnson. In Johnson, it says that, “Unless you live in a culture that recognizes such differences as significant, they are socially irrelevant and therefore, in a way, do not exist” (Johnson 17). The blue-eyed children did not feel superior and smarter than the brown-eyed children until their teacher told them they were and made them recognize their differences. By doing this experiment, she made the blue-eyed children the privileged group and the brown eyed children the oppressed group on the first day. Jane Elliott commented during the documentary, “I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, discriminating little third graders in a space of fifteen minutes.” The documentary helps support that unless you live in a society where difference matters about who is privileged and who is not, then it does not exist. There was no privileged group until the teacher made one. You can see this in the video when the children came in from recess on the first day. Two of the boys got into a fight and when the teacher asked them why the brown-eyed boy said it was because the blue-eyed boy called him “brown eyes.” Therefore, Jane Elliott asked the blue-eyed boy if he meant that to be mean or funny and he responded mean. Jane then went on to ask, “Well you did not call him brown eyes yesterday, so why would you call him that to be mean today?” The blue-eyed boy responded, “Because of that collar you put on him.” This just proves the point that unless our society makes and points out peoples differences, then they are not there. The children also made the reference that calling him “brown eyes” is like calling a black person a “nigger.”

When I saw we had to do this assignment, I immediately thought of this video. This is because it captures what we have been talking about with privilege and oppression perfectly. I think this video is very interesting and every time I watch it, I learn something new. It really puts things in perspective for me about privilege, racism, and oppression. Even fourteen years later, those children can still feel the pain and suffering they went through on those two days. It is hard to imagine what it would feel like going through that everyday of your life. I think that everyone should watch this documentary at least once in their lives because it has a very powerful message and there is a lot to learn from it.